


Common Tongue

by Allekha



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Backstory, Fluff, Gen, Languages, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 11:12:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16785829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allekha/pseuds/Allekha
Summary: Yuuri had studied Russian on his own since he was a kid who wanted to know more about Victor. It took some time for him to realize that Victor didn't know this.





	Common Tongue

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: learning languages.  
> Edited slightly and posted for Yuuri's birthday.

It took a while for Yuuri to realize that Victor didn't actually know he spoke some Russian.

He'd started studying it, in bits and pieces, to try and find out more about Victor – while there was plenty about him in Japanese, especially after he'd won the Olympics for the first time, there was more in English, and of course even more than that in Russian. Machine translation didn't work that well, and he wanted to know what the different commentators said about him, which computers couldn't help with at all. And he'd wanted to understand Victor in his own words, not through the filter of translation.

He didn't have a lot of time for studying a new language on his own, between school and skating, but he learned a few things in what little free time he did have. The alphabet, basic grammar, lots of skating vocabulary. Minako-sensei had taught him some words, too, ones that she'd picked up in her dancer days. Then he'd gone to university, and they had Russian courses, so he'd taken them, and found himself actually speaking it to someone other than himself for the first time.

Having Victor around might have been an even better opportunity to practice. But Victor's English was really good, and Yuuri's was better than his Russian since he'd lived in America for a couple of years. It seemed weird to switch when they could talk just fine, or like he would have been trying to show off.

Yuuri still wasn't fluent when he moved to St. Petersburg, but his Russian was good enough to live with, he thought. It was a little hard to tell, though. Yakov spoke enough English to make himself understood at the rink, and Victor's rink mates spoke it pretty well. And whenever he went out with Victor, Victor would always ask if they had an English menu for him, or tell him what things were called and what they were, or jump in to order for him at cafés. That was when Yuuri realized that Victor didn't know that he could order for himself.

Victor really should have known better, because he must have seen him poking through Russian sports news pages on his phone while they were cuddling together, or scrolling past Russian posts on social media. Maybe he thought Yuuri used BabelTranslator a lot. "Did you have any trouble at the store?" Victor asked one day, when he'd discovered that Yuuri had gone grocery shopping without him. "I know it's tricky when you can't read the labels." But before Yuuri could finishing opening his mouth to explain that yes, in fact, he could read the labels with only a little help from his dictionary app, Victor had started exclaiming over one of his purchases. It had gone into their dinner, and cleaning up afterward had been interrupted by kisses that turned into making out, and in the end, Yuuri had entirely forgotten that he meant to say anything.

Lilia was actually the first to know; she struggled more with finding the right English words in their ballet lessons than the other people Yuuri interacted with every day did. So one evening, praying that he wasn't accidentally saying something wrong, Yuuri had quietly suggested that maybe he could understand her in Russian. "I suppose you could use the practice," she'd said, and he nodded. That, too. The lessons went fine either way.

Victor still didn't figure it out after that, like he thought that maybe Lilia was telepathic, or Yuuri could magically intuit what she meant, or he only knew the phrases used in ballet. It was getting funny, actually. Yuuri was starting to look forward to the expression he would have on his face once the surprise was revealed.

He didn't find out through Yuuri flawlessly ordering for the two of them at a restaurant, or through sleepy dialogue in bed, or anything fun like that. It was a normal day at the rink, and Yuri was talking to – grumbling at, more like – Georgi, and when Yuuri skated closer, he could tell what Yuri was complaining about. There were still a lot of words that he didn't know, especially when they were spoken so quickly, and by someone like Yuri who didn't have classroom enunciation. But he could understand enough to slide to a stop beside them and say, also in Russian, "If the Nishigoori girls keep asking for videos of you practicing, you can say no, or not to post them, you know. They'll listen. They're just skating geeks who want to see how you're doing. They're not like your weird fans." 

Georgi's mouth opened, before he turned it into an encouraging smile. Yuri's jaw hit the ice just in time for Victor to notice their little group and head over. Somewhere behind him, Yakov was starting to eye them, probably winding up to yell at them for slacking off. "What's wrong, Yura?" Victor asked, circling around him to nudge against Yuuri's side, one of a million little shows of affection they shared every day.

"I think he's surprised at how bad my pronunciation is," Yuuri said, again in Russian, and wow, he had been right: Victor made the most amazing face, his smile dropping off for pure shock. "I've been studying since middle school, but I haven't been able to speak it much. I'll try to practice more, now that I'm living here." He gave Victor a smile of his own, and took a moment to admire the astonished expression he'd caused (it was always nice to surprise Victor), before he skated off across the ice.

He could hear Yuri shrieking, "You didn't _know_?" from the other side of the rink, before Victor came to chase him down with plaintive questions.


End file.
